As it is known, in dentistry there are often used apparatuses which are capable of acquiring a patient's dental radiographic image for then showing the image itself on a visualization monitor.
In particular, the aforementioned apparatuses are typically provided with an emitter device adapted to generate a beam of X rays towards the patient's oral cavity; with a radiographic sensor adapted to acquire a radiographic image of the oral cavity generating by the emitter device; and with a computer which is adapted to store and visualize on a respective monitor the radiographic image acquired by the sensor.
The last generation apparatuses are equipped, moreover, with a communication device of the wireless type, which is capable of receiving and transmitting radio signals between the computer and the radiographic sensor so to permit the computer to transmit to the radiographic sensor the commands for acquiring the radiographic images and to the radiographic sensor itself to transmit to the computer the radio signals containing the data related to the acquired radiographic image. In particular, the communication device receives and transmits data by implementing a standard communications protocol.
A problem connected to the aforementioned apparatuses is the need by the dentist to configure, in the initial step of use of the apparatus itself, a communication channel between the computer and the radiographic sensor/s in the range of action of the communication device so to ensure a correct reception and transmission of the commands and the radiographic images between each radiographic sensor and the computer via the established communication channel.
Indeed, it often occurs that at the apparatus and therefore the communication device, there are present in addition to the radiographic sensors also other types of apparatuses or devices using the same standard communication protocol implemented by the communication device.
Such apparatuses or devices typically consists of cellular telephones, headphones or players, which, during the initial identification step of the radiographic sensors implemented by the computer are indistinctively acknowledged by the computer itself. So the dentist, after acknowledging the various communicating devices and apparatuses made by the computer is forced to select the acknowledged radiographic sensor or sensors distinguishing them from the other identified apparatuses and devices, thus configuring the communication channel or channels between the computer and the sensors.
This operation, in addition to creating an inconvenience for the dentist in terms of time and therefore of costs, may determine an incorrect operation of the apparatus if the configuration of the communication channels between the computer and the radiographic sensors is performed incorrectly by the dentist him or herself.
It is also known that in some radiographic image acquisition and visualization apparatuses of the type mentioned above, the radiographic sensor, after a predetermined stand-by time after its activation, is automatically deactivated to impede an accumulation of electrons in its cells.
If on one hand such automatic deactivation of the radiographic sensor prevents the deterioration of the image caused by excessive accumulation of electrons in the cells, on the other it considerably increases the risk of exposing the patient to an unnecessary dose of X rays, if the emission device is activated by the dentist in an instant after the predetermined stand-by time of the sensor.